Caroline
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Homepage: http://www.constellata.com
Posts by Caroline
How to be successful in discovering and publishing research
May 30th
Here follows an article I have submitted for IATEFL’s 2019 Conference Selections, based on my presentation at the IATEFL Conference in Liverpool in 2019.
My research experience
My experience began as an undergraduate student in the 1980s at Liverpool University, a mile from the IATEFL 2019 conference venue. I then carried out research for postgraduate degrees in Literature, Applied Linguistics and Business Studies in the UK and France. Finding research across different subject disciplines was challenging, for instance navigating indexing systems, and working in a foreign language, French.
I have commissioned and published research, mainly for the British Council, written for various publications including academic journals, and carried out research for publisher clients.
For the past two years I have worked for Ingenta, a company that delivers services to publishers, including Ingenta Connect, which hosts journals for over 200 publishers. Much of this article will be informed by what I have learned from my work with academic publishers across a wide range of subject disciplines.
The Bett Show
Jan 29th
The BETT Show is an annual trade show in the UK marketing IT in Education and the first Bett show was held in 1985. Since 2013 it has been held annually in January at the Excel Centre in East London. I think I have attended most shows since the early 1990s, much has changed, both in the world of ICT and the use of technology in society. The show is big, lots of stands, talks, and increasingly corporate, with the largest stands from Microsoft and Google. Promethean, the Interactive Whiteboard manufacturer, was also prominent.
Trends
- Meeting apps
- Virtual Reality
- STEM )Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine) and STEAM (STEM +art)
- Robotics and coding
- Fewer mainstream publishers had stands, as did many other specialist technology companies that usually have a large presence such as Sherston Software, Education City and Little Bridge. That said, many of these companies had staff attending for business meetings in and around the exhibition.
The international focus remains, with a Dept for International Trade (DIT) stand and stands from France, Israel, UAE, Finland, Spain, Hungary, and Moscow City Dept of Education.
Do ELT course books still have a future?
May 25th
The answer to my question proved complicated, here are my presentation slides from the IATEFL Conference in Birmingham in April 2016, in which I revisited research into the future of the ELT coursebook that I started in 2010.
In my research I found printed coursebooks continue to be widely used, and the take up of digital alternatives has been slower than I predicted in 2010.
Teachers and students: online outside the classroom, offline inside the classroom.
[Publisher comment]
I also found that the publishing sector is struggling to make money from coursebooks and digital alternatives, as governments cut budgets, consumers expect content for free, and the result has been very challenging for people involved in the sector, particularly authors. There are some interesting developments and initiatives, but important pedagogical issues still need to be resolved.
Virtually unknown: web conferences as a tool for teacher development
Apr 14th
I talked about the research that I helped carry out into the IATEFL Web Conference 2014 at IATEFL Manchester on Tuesday 14 April 2015 at 1025 and here are my Powerpoint slides.
Virtual unknown IATEFL Manchester 2015 Caroline Moore
You can see Mercedes Viola and me discuss the conference and the research in this interview:
and my talk was filmed for IATEFL Online:
Abstract
“Little is known about the effectiveness of web conferences in education and professional development. This presentation analyses the discourse used in IATEFL’s October 2014 2-day Web Conference, and participant evaluation of the event. It will conclude with suggestions for the creation of optimal conditions for successful and engaging educational webinars, and recommend appropriate evaluative tools. ”
Follow the money
Apr 8th
I recently contributed to an article published by Sylvia Guinan’s blog on future trends in digital learning in which I concluded with the quote “follow the money…”. This was interpreted by some readers as meaning that you should focus on doing things that make you money, whereas what I meant was that to understand the behaviour of new businesses active in English Language Teaching (ELT) you often need to look at their financial motivation and how they plan to make money from their efforts.
“Follow the money” was coined in the 1975 film “All the President’s Men” to show how journalists can uncover illegal behaviour by following money trails. But the term is also useful for understanding perfectly legal behaviour, even though some find the idea of big business making big bucks from education distasteful.
So, what are ELT’s money trails, and what do they mean? And why does this matter?